


Thief and Warg

by Artemisdesari



Series: Fairy Tales of Middle Earth [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Beauty and the Beast, F/M, Fairy Tales of Middle Earth, Middle Earth Style, Pre-Quest of Erebor, Thief Nori, Warg Dwalin, girl Nori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemisdesari/pseuds/Artemisdesari
Summary: “Now,” the warg grumbled, “is that pretty mouth of yours any good for anything other than yapping?”“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Nori replied with a wide smile, all the while internally smacking herself.Nori has the worst luck, spirited away by her brother, stranded in a blizzard and stuck in a cave with a warg of all things.The third of a group of entirely unconnected fairy tales set in Middle Earth
Relationships: Dwalin/Nori (Tolkien)
Series: Fairy Tales of Middle Earth [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992541
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39





	Thief and Warg

Nori muttered a soft curse as she pushed through the driving wind, her arms wrapped tightly about her against the sudden chill. She hated this town, she hated that Dori had moved them here to try and get her away from the negative influences, and she hated that her brother could not accept the craft she was called to. So Mahal had decided that she was a thief, there was obviously a plan. Dori would have been better served letting her go instead of drugging her and tying her up in the back of a wagon as they left town with poor Ori in tow. Poor Ori who had been about to begin his apprenticeship with one of the best scribes in the Blue Mountains and was now stuck with some idiot in the stupid town that Dori had dragged them to. 

Still, she thought as she considered the contents of her pack, the idiot did nice work even if he couldn’t understand the majority of the words he copied. The books would fetch a pretty price back home, and the silver would go a long way to appeasing her boss who would not have taken her disappearance well. Her timing, however, had been foolish. Although it was autumn there had been signs for days that winter was approaching early and that it was going to be a hard one. You got good at reading the weather in the mountains, or you got dead. There was no in between.

It seemed that this time her own overconfidence was going to result in Nori getting killed. And by the weather of all things. 

How humiliating.

The snow had begun about fifteen minutes before she had changed course, she had been on the road and it had forced her into the trees. Now her nose was filled with the smell of pine and her ears could hear the faint creak of wood in the wind that howled around her. She wanted to trust that the trees would remain strong in the face of the elements, but she had very little faith in her own luck at the moment. After all, if she had any form of luck the storm would have waited until she was far enough away for it to stop pursuit and leave her unaffected. 

Her luck, it turned out, was beyond poor.

Distances in the snow could be deceiving, especially when fighting against the wind, but Nori was fairly certain that she was in one of the narrow points of the pine forest, where the treeline was not far from the rocky mountain face at the base of which was a cave. She had heard the dwarves in town speaking about it, although she had not had the opportunity to investigate it herself, and she could only hope that it would make a decent enough shelter until the storm blew over. 

Even beneath the trees the snow was beginning to build up and it made her task that much harder. She managed to find the cave, however, as darkness was starting to fall and the snow was ankle deep on the ground even under the cover of the trees. It would be deeper still on the road, she knew. Nori stopped just inside, brushing as much of the snow as she could off her violet hood and her sturdy pack, knocking her boots against the rocky walls and using cold fingers to brush still more out of her beard. The best she could do was hope that she could clear enough of it off to stop herself from getting too cold as it began to melt. Even dwarves could freeze to death, hardy as they were. 

It was not until she looked up, and what a rookie mistake it was to enter the cave without checking to see if it was occupied first, that she noticed she was not alone. Instinct had her reaching for her axe and there was a rumbling sound, almost like a laugh, from the large creature in front of her.

“You’re about five minutes too late for that, lassie,” a voice said. “I could have bitten you in two while you were fussing with your things when you came in.” Icy grey eyes stared at her as a large warg lifted his head from the cave floor. The creature’s brown fur was streaked through with blue on his forelegs and between his ears, the right of which had obviously been torn at some point.

“Why didn’t you?” Nori asked, although she did not relax her grip on the axe.

“You’re hardly more than a mouthful,” the warg seemed to shrug. “And I’ve already eaten today.” He, for the voice could only be that of a male with the way the rumble made her shiver and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, continued. “Besides, I’d wager you’re in here for the same reason I am.”

“What are you?” Nori demanded. Wargs did not speak, wargs could not speak, but this one was doing exactly that. Wargs did not leave anyone who might walk into their den alive either, whether they be wild or enslaved by orcs. Therefore, this could not be a warg.

“What do I look like?” The creature replied. Nori told him. “Then I am warg.” He put his head down on his paws once more.

“Wargs don’t talk,” Nori insisted.

“We all do to start,” the warg muttered. “Quit your yapping and get some sleep. This storm won’t be over any time in the next couple of days. I hope you’ve got some supplies in that pack of yours, you won’t be getting out to hunt.”

“How do I know you won’t eat me?” Nori asked.

“You don’t,” was the answer. “But the way I see it you have two options, go and die in that blizzard, there aren’t any other caves round here, or risk staying in with me. Way I hear it, slowly freezing to death in the snow isn’t all that pleasant a way to die.”

“As opposed to being eaten?” Nori snarked, and took a moment to promise herself that if she got out of this alive she would work on thinking before speaking. The warg made an impatient noise, somewhere between a sigh and a growl.

“I give you my word, lassie,” he said as he raised his head again, “that if I decide you’re too annoying to put up with I will eat you in such a way as to ensure your death is quick. Will that do?”

“Fine,” Nori agreed, flopping onto the cold floor.

“Now,” the warg grumbled, “is that pretty mouth of yours any good for anything  _ other _ than yapping?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Nori replied with a wide smile, all the while internally smacking herself. It was definitely time to start thinking before she spoke. The warg chuckled. 

“Eat. Sleep.” He ordered and Nori was surprisingly quick to obey.

* * *

Two days later it was still snowing and the entrance to the cave was already half covered. Fortunately this allowed a supply of fresh water provided one was happy to eat handfuls of snow. Unfortunately it meant that there was no chance of Nori getting out of the cave anytime soon. She huddled under her blanket, thankful she had thought to pack an extra thick one even though it left less space for her pilfered goods. She also had enough dried supplies to last her the three week journey to the nearest town rather than risking one of the villages. She would be alright so long as the storm did not keep her cut off for that long. Otherwise, regardless of the warg’s promise, she would be forced to try and move on regardless. 

“Have you got a name, chatterbox?” The warg asked her as he slithered down the piled snow at the mouth of the cave. She scowled at him, it was not like there was all that much else to do other than talk, and her fingers were too cold to play her flute. She still was not entirely certain why she had bothered to bring the thing.

“Nori,” she replied and was irritated when the warg tilted his head and laughed.

“I’ll bet you’re a scrap under all those layers, lass,” the warg chuckled.

“Well, what’s your name?” She demanded. The warg’s laughter stopped. 

“I don’t have one,” he replied. “Not anymore.”

“‘Not anymore’?” She enquired.

“Leave it alone,” he snarled. 

“I told you mine,” she pointed out. The warg turned and climbed back out of the cave.

* * *

Nori woke feeling warmer than she had in days. Her nose tickled and she wriggled it absently as she thought about the fact that she should probably tie her hair back until she was out of the cave. The wriggling made the tickle worse, however, and she opened her eyes to find the warg curled around her.

“Awake at last,” he rumbled.

“What do you mean at last?” She asked, alarmed at the hunger that was starting to gnaw at her.

“You decided to try and head out in that,” the warg nodded towards the cave entrance, now two thirds of it was blocked, although that was partly by virtue of the fact that the warg dug the way out every day. “You were half frozen by the time I found you.” If she did not know better, she would have sworn there was a note of concern in her warg’s voice. “You’ve been asleep for two days. Only way to warm you was to do this.”

“Why not let me die?” She asked, noting the piles of wood that had been dragged into the cave and the half frozen carcass of a deer near the snow at the entrance of the cave.

“No sense in wasting a mouthful,” the warg rumbled. “Might come a time when even  _ I _ can’t get out to hunt.”

“You don’t mean that,” she chuckled as she reached and pulled her pack close so that she could grab some cram from it to gnaw on. Her warg was grumpy, but he was still very gentle with her and when he  _ did _ speak she enjoyed their conversations. Not that he spoke much, and he was silent as she ate and took a few mouthfuls of snowmelt from her water skin. “Aren’t you hungry?” She asked after a moment, though she was still tired and reluctant to give up his warmth.

“I will be fine,” he grumbled. “Go back to sleep, Nori.”

“Anything you say, Beastie,” she mumbled.

“Dwalin,” he told her softly as she began to drift. “They once called me Dwalin.”

* * *

“Dwalin is a dwarf name,” Nori said as the warg came back into the cave. The snow had stopped falling, but temperatures had plummeted and even if she had wanted to risk leaving it was too cold for her to get far in the clothes that she had. This winter was to be a harsh one.

“What of it?” Her warg demanded.

“That’s what you told me your name was,” she said as she helped to drag another deer into the cave. The other from a few days before had been dressed and placed into the snow to preserve it for her to eat. She would do the same with this and try to eat only as much as she needed to survive the next few months. Mahal, she hoped it would not be more than that even though mountain winters tended to be long.

“Aye, it was,” he was wary, his icy eyes watching her as though waiting for some kind of attack.

“So what kind of orc names their warg pup with a dwarf name?” She asked.

“They don’t,” the warg disappeared back outside for a few minutes before reappearing with half a tree clamped in his jaws. It was easier to keep a small fire burning most of the time than it was to relight a new one constantly. It meant that the new wood that got brought in had a chance to dry out after she had cut it. “But,” he added as he shook himself, “wargs aren’t born, they’re made.” Nori yelped as cold snow splashed her cheeks.

“What do you mean ‘made’?” Nori demanded, getting to work on the deer. Her warg, because after a month in the cave with him he was  _ her _ warg, sighed.

“Meaning that we start life as Men or dwarves, even the odd elf,” he said, “and things happen that lead to our capture. Some are kept for breeding stock, most are changed straight away.” He shook his head. “It drives nearly every victim insane which makes it easier for the orcs to train them. But some of us… some of us can’t be changed in our minds. I was one and I managed to escape.”

“Can you be changed back?” Nori asked, her hands stilling at the thought that there is a dwarf trapped inside this monstrous creature.

“No,” Dwalin replied. “This is what I will be until the day I die. Or until I lose my mind entirely and someone is forced to kill me.” He tilted his head. “If you had any sense about you, you would do it yourself before we part ways.”

“Good thing I’m not known for my good sense, then,” Nori quipped, although she could not help but feel a pit in her stomach open at the thought of hurting her warg.

* * *

Nori was playing her flute when Dwalin returned. He was late, far later than he usually was on days when the hunting had been bad. On those days he usually returned well before sunset with an empty stomach and a short temper, even though Nori would thaw out some of her meat rations to give him. Her flute, which she had not indulged in playing since before running with her ill gotten gains, was her way of hiding her concern about her large friend. It had been six weeks, according to the marks she scratched on the wall each day, since their talk about wargs being made. They only had each other for the time being, and part of Nori was starting to wonder if she wanted to be without him  _ after _ the snow thawed enough for her to make her way to the next village. 

It would be a real feather in her cap to have a warg at her side, after all, and Dwalin was the first friend in a while who seemed to have no ulterior motives for all his talk of eating her if the pickings got too slim.

There was a clatter and she looked up to see Dwalin slide into the cave with a whine and she had all but flung her flute to the side in a moment as she went to him. It did not take long to see  _ why _ Dwalin had come in less than gracefully, even though that was not something that wargs were known for anyway. An arrow was sticking out of his side, just below his ribs and she reached for it, knowing that it had to come out or it would do more damage every time he moved.

“Leave it,” he snarled.

“It will kill you,” Nori objected.

“Then it kills me,” he replied. “About time too.”

“What happened?” She asked, snatching her hand back when he snapped at her.

“Got too close to the Mahal cursed town,” her warg replied. “It was going to happen eventually. They’re getting almost as desperate as we are.” Guilt pinched at her. Dori and Ori would be feeling the strain as well while she sat in this cave with her warg friend. Although her diet was, admittedly, bland and rather dull after several months.

“Please let me take it out,” Nori begged.

“Don’t want to lose your source of a good meal and heat?” The warg asked. 

“If you die, I’ll skin you and wear the pelt to keep me warm,” Nori informed him. “And I’ll eat your carcass, even as vile as it would probably taste. I don’t want to lose my friend.”

“Take it out and you’ll probably kill me anyway,” the warg warned.

“Then why stop me?” She demanded in return. He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded.

* * *

It took a while for Dwalin to recover from his injury and in that time Nori began to see changes in him that should have concerned her. He was in pain, naturally, and with the pain it seemed that the dwarf part of him went into hiding. She started to worry about turning her back on him and went back to keeping her axe close by. 

“Dwalin!” She cried as he growled at her, crouched low. His normally icy grey eyes flat with a wild need to hunt and kill. 

“It’s me, Dwalin, Nori.” She reached towards him, cursing herself for thinking he was asleep and she would be safe. 

“It’s Nori,” she breathed again as she touched his muzzle, running a gentle hand along the short fur there and seeing the light come back into his eyes.

“There you are,” she whispered as he pushed his head into her hand and allowed her to run her hands through the thicker fur on his head and over the blue streak down the centre as he let out an apologetic whine.

“There you are,” she whispered again as the tension ran out of her.

  
  


* * *

Nori woke with her warg curled around her. They both slept more these days, the local deer population having been decimated by both of them and the local town as winter dragged on. Dwalin had healed from his injury well, but Nori was under no illusions about their future. They had to move on, cold or not. There was no more food here and they were down to the last few chunks of frozen deer. The snow was beginning to melt, although it was slow and nighttimes were still too dangerous to weather outside. It was now a choice between starving in the cave, or freezing to death on the road and Nori was done lingering and waiting for death to come to her.

She crawled out from the warm space made by the large furry body and went to her pack. Everything was still in it except her blanket, which was wrapped around her, and the food which had once filled it. 

“What are you doing?” Dwalin rumbled. It made her wonder what he would have looked like when he was still a dwarf. Would he have been the big and muscled kind who played into all of her deeper fantasies? Or would he have been softer and rounded? Or even slender? There were far more slender dwarves around since the fall of Erebor and the losses at Azanulbizar, as well as the disappearance of Thrain and half of his guard a decade before.

“Leaving,” Nori replied. “I’m not waiting here to die.”

“As you will,” Dwalin sighed, resting his head on his paws as he watched her.

“Come with me,” she said.

“You know I can’t,” he replied. 

She knew, she did. Since his injury the wild and angry creature he had been turned into was becoming more and more prominent. What he did not realise was that she still had a measure of control over him in that time, likely due to the fact that he slept curled around her and so his scent was thick on her. She was his, he was hers and even though it took longer and longer for the mind of the dwarf to come back the warg was beginning to obey her.

“I want you to,” Nori told him. “We can work it out.”

“Bragging rights for having pet warg?” Dwalin sneered as he got to his feet. She set her pack to one side.

“No,” she shook her head. “I want you to come with me because you’re my friend.” The warg snorted. “I want you to come with me because I love you.”

The warg leapt at her, teeth bared in a low snarl, knocking her onto her back with a heavy paw pinning her chest in place. She looked back up at him, violet eyes unwavering as he snapped his teeth near her face.

“You cannot love this,” he growled.

“Don’t tell me what I can and cannot love,” Nori replied. “I love you and I want you to come with me.” She lifted her hand and reached up to thread her fingers through his thick fur. “Come with me.”

He reeled away, something that was almost a scream emerging from him as he fell backwards. Freed of his weight Nori sprung to her feet, axe in hand even though she was not entirely sure she would be able to use it on him. For a moment she expected him to get up and attack her, half thought that perhaps this time it was really the end of the dwarf mind trapped in the body of the beast. Then the sounds started, the sickening crunch of breaking bone accompanied by screams and howls of agony. He started to shrink into himself, becoming smaller as fur began to vanish and his screams dwindled to whimpers. When it stopped Nori stood on her side of the cave in stunned silence as she looked at the still body in front of her. 

The body of a dwarf.

It only took a moment for her to race to his side, dropping the axe and falling to her knees as she looked him over. He was still wearing the clothes he had likely been captured in, though he had no weapons, right down to his boots. The blue streak of fur that she had been so fond of between his ears was now revealed to be a mohawk, although it had fallen to one side without the usual wax to hold it upright. The other blue streaks were also revealed as tattoos which covered the exposed skin of the dwarf’s arms. He was muscular, broad in all the ways that Nori liked, but even then the evidence of a hard winter with too little food could be seen in his sunken cheeks.

“Dwalin?” She hardly dared to speak above a whisper.

“Nori?” His voice was hoarse and pained, but the same grey eyes stared up at her from the thin face. “You look bigger.” She let out a pained laugh.

“You’re a bit smaller,” she told him, running a curious finger across his forehead. “Can you sit?”

He grunted and pushed himself upright, then paused to take in the changes. He stared at his hands and arms for a long while, plucked at the worn fabric of his clothes in something like wonder.

“Nine winters,” he muttered. “Nine winters I’ve been the warg.” He looked at her. “How?”

“Do I look like a wizard?” Nori shrugged. “I’m just a thief.” She grabbed her blanket from her pack and wrapped it around him before leaning close to him. “I’m going to miss your big furry coat though,” she added. “We definitely have to leave now. Think you can make the next village?”

It was only a couple of days away, if they walked through the night they might make it without having to stop and risk the elements.

“Can’t stay here,” Dwalin agreed. Then he looked down at her and put his arm about her shoulders. “There’s one thing I want to do before we go,” he told her, “wanted to do it the moment I saw you.”

“What?” She asked.

He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. Nori shifted so that the angle was not as awkward, moving so that she could kiss him properly. 

They did not return to the town that Nori had run from, making it to the next village and able to spin a good tale about being travellers who had been attacked and then stranded. If Nori sold the books and the pair used the coin to set up in another town no one was to know. Just the thief and her warg guard.

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say, I've been a sucker for girl Nori since Wild Magic. And apparently I now have a new head canon about wargs. Who knew? Wrote this one entirely today, it hit late last night as I was writing my latest chapter of Jewel of Durin and popped out while I was supposed to maths. So here it is. Let me know what you think. I've already go another one in mind.


End file.
